TomTom Suggestions

[anap]

Here's a few of my ideas on areas TomTom needs to work on. These would make my experience with my TomTom so much better.

These are in no particular order of preference, I prefer to have them all

1. Menu option / Quick Menu option to totally black out the display until the screen is touched again.

2. Themeable menus (Change background color mostly)

3. "Back" button woes: When pressing the back button, or cancel button, or done button, it should take you back to the most recent menu or submenu that you were in, not all the way back to the map like some "back" presses do.

4. Display brightness needs to be lower per percentage. 0% brightness is still way to bright when using it in almost total darkness. The white-ish backlight from the LCD is pretty bright even at 0%. Working night shift, it's still very blinding - especially when you goto a menu. Yes, I am using a custom theme which is a black background and very light gray roads and it's still to bright.

5. Ability to theme or change the color of the status bars. Again, mostly because of the display brightness problem.

6. All menu options and submenu options should be available as quick menu items.

7. Major gripe #1: SHOW MORE SURROUNDING ROADNAMES! I want to see a LOT more names of roads that are around me. The verbosity of roadnames on the map should correspond to the zoom level that you are at. The higher the zoom, show me more names of roads that are around me.

8. Major gripe #2: Show road NAMES instead of road numbers for roads that I have corrected with a name.

9. Bring back the blue status bar with the next road name. Having it at the top is awkward and the font gets way to small for long road names.

10. The current road name, when shown on the map, needs to be separated from the rest of the map - say by a different color background. On a city map in 2D mode, it's really easy to look at it and think that it is naming a street that is on the map instead of your current road name.

11. Ability to enter a street/road name to navigate to BEFORE a city name. Many times I don't know the city since there are many small cities around here. TomTom says you have to enter a city first to narrow down the search. How about this: Let us enter a street first and have the ability to narrow it down to X number of miles from our current location.


Sorry so long, but hopefully someone from TomTom will read this and pass this along to the developers. The above items would make TomTom the perfect GPS unit for me if they were added - especially #7 and #8!!

 

[dhn]

Regarding number 8.......

Not sure (unit not here) but isn't there a sign preference to show or not show road numbers or road names? Do you have it checked to show numbers?

 

[anap]

I thought I remembered seeing that option as well, but maybe it disappeared in App ver 8.351 along with the blue status bar next road name thing.

Only options in Street Name Prefs are:

Show house number before street name
Show street names
Show next street name
Show current street name on map

I'm not certain, but I think I remember more options in that menu prior to 8.351

Oh, I'm using a GO 730.

 

[dhn]

Then the choice is in another Preference, I think.

 

[pianoCM]

AFAIK, Quick Menu is only available for 9x0 series

 

[anap]

AFAIK, Quick Menu is only available for 9x0 series

Works on my 730.

 

[pianoCM]

Works on my 730.

Do you have HelpMe under that QuickMenu?

 

[dhn]

Yep, have it on my 720

 

[mvl]

Some of these features are available in higher en models.

2. Themeable menus (Change background color mostly)

Available in 540/740/940

4. Display brightness needs to be lower per percentage. 0% brightness is still way to bright when using it in almost total darkness. The white-ish backlight from the LCD is pretty bright even at 0%. Working night shift, it's still very blinding - especially when you goto a menu. Yes, I am using a custom theme which is a black background and very light gray roads and it's still to bright.

Set the auto-dim feature, and then try the 0%. I think that setup goes even darker. Works fine for me at night.

The menu doesn't dim in older Tomtom models. It does on the 540/740/940.

5. Ability to theme or change the color of the status bars. Again, mostly because of the display brightness problem.

Ditto - 540/740/940

7. Major gripe #1: SHOW MORE SURROUNDING ROADNAMES! I want to see a LOT more names of roads that are around me. The verbosity of roadnames on the map should correspond to the zoom level that you are at. The higher the zoom, show me more names of roads that are around me.

My tomtom does this, more roads names with higher zoom. I run it in 2d mode, don't remember what it does in 3d mode.

8. Major gripe #2: Show road NAMES instead of road numbers for roads that I have corrected with a name.

My tomtom does this, see DHN's preference

 

[anap]

I don't have my 730 with me at the moment, but I swear I saw an option to show names instead of numbers in app prior to 8.351, but I can't find it in 8.351 for the life of me.

And my 730 definately doesn't show more road names depending on zoom level. I run exclusively in 2d (north always up) mode as well.

 

[dhn]

Are you thinking of the voice preference to read names of signs and/or numbers? If so, that's still there.

 

[peterkronenberg]

I know this has been mentioned before, but it is still driving me crazy that TomTom reads the minus sign in route numbers such as I-95. Come on, that should have shown up in their first day of testing, given that their US Headquarters is just 5 minutes to I-95

also, maybe this is just me or maybe it's a regional thing, but I have always tended to read 3-digit route numbers by digit. So that whereas I-95 would be "eye ninety-five" (not eye minus ninety-five),
Highway 123 would be "Highway one-two-three". TomTom reads it as Highway One Hundred Twenty Three.
Is it just me?

And again, in this "is it me?" category, in my area, not every road with a number is a highway. We have Route 7, Route 123, Route 267, etc. But TomTom insists on reading them as Highway 123, etc.

Peter
------
Current TomTom:
Go 720 app 8.351 / map NA_2GB 830 + full NA POI
+ map subscription + PLUS traffic + Fuel prices

Prior TomToms:
Go Classic
Go 700

 

[dhn]

Check your voice preference ....read aloud street number and see if it is checked.

 

[peterkronenberg]

It does read aloud the street number. It's just that it reads it as a number (one hundred twenty-three) instead of by digit (one-two-three or even one-twenty-three).

 

[pianoCM]

I was once seeing/hearing it announced as "take exit fourty A minus B" (exit 40A-B) but the later NC had fixed this problem, I don't know that it still exists on NC 8.351

 

[mvl]

I drove from Boston to Orlando (app 8.350 / map 825 / Loquendo 6.9) and never got the eye-minus-95.

I have only seen it reported on the Loquendo 7 models. (x30/x40) Perhaps it is unique to that Loquendo version.

In loquendo 7, there is a number hint file "roadnrEnglishUS.rex". Perhaps edits to that file can fix the issue. Hopefully malouff (our resident Loquendo guru) can chime in.

 

[canderson]

also, maybe this is just me or maybe it's a regional thing, but I have always tended to read 3-digit route numbers by digit. So that whereas I-95 would be "eye ninety-five" (not eye minus ninety-five),
Highway 123 would be "Highway one-two-three". TomTom reads it as Highway One Hundred Twenty Three.
Is it just me?

And again, in this "is it me?" category, in my area, not every road with a number is a highway. We have Route 7, Route 123, Route 267, etc. But TomTom insists on reading them as Highway 123, etc.

Peter
------
Current TomTom:
Go 720 app 8.351 / map NA_2GB 830 + full NA POI
+ map subscription + PLUS traffic + Fuel prices

Prior TomToms:
Go Classic
Go 700

Like you, I am running a 720 + 8.351 + 830. I am also using a computer voice (Susan). Further, the "I" in an interstate highway number is ALWAYS changed to "Interstate" for me, due to the file that MVL mentioned in his prior post (roadnr.EnglishUS6.8.lex). I hear "Interstate 25", not "eye 25". So something about your setup isn't quite kosher to begin with.

What "voice" are you using?

(MVL: The "minus" isn't a function of that file, and it's about the only one you can manually edit without some serious tweaks in the process.)

 

[peterkronenberg]

Like you, I am running a 720 + 8.351 + 830. I am also using a computer voice (Susan). Further, the "I" in an interstate highway number is ALWAYS changed to "Interstate" for me, due to the file that MVL mentioned in his prior post (roadnr.EnglishUS6.8.lex). I hear "Interstate 25", not "eye 25". So something about your setup isn't quite kosher to begin with.

What "voice" are you using?

(MVL: The "minus" isn't a function of that file, and it's about the only one you can manually edit without some serious tweaks in the process.)

Hmm, I will have to double-check the version I'm running. I'm also using Susan.
To clarify, some of the comments I made also referred to the Traffic Report (when TomTom reads out the current traffic delays). Maybe it's being inconsistent.
I'm actually going on a 3 hour trip tomorrow from DC to Philly, which will include I-95, so I'll be able to play around some more (and I'm sure there will be traffic. This will be my first real test of the 740 LIVE in a traffic situation)

 

[peterkronenberg]

Like you, I am running a 720 +

Whoops, my sig was wrong. I'm running the 740 Live, not 720

 

[canderson]

Whoops, my sig was wrong. I'm running the 740 Live, not 720

Ah ... OK. Don't have a 740 to play with, so let's be sure the Text to Speech generation file matches up.

Your 740 will have a folder called LoquendoTTS. In it, is there a file called EnglishUs6.9.lde? If different, what is it?

In the LoquendoTTS/EnglishUS folder, is there a file called EnglishUs6.9.lex or something similar? If different, what is it?

[MVL: This will also fill in the 740 TTS version gap in our chart.]